The History of Wyboth's Gaming Career
Although it wasn't the first game I ever played, the game that sparked the gamer in me was Pokemon. Flashback to May 2005. I received a Gamecube and Pokemon Colosseum for my eight birthday. At the time, I was only eight, and wasn't an adept gamer. I only finished 1/8th of the game before giving up because I got stuck. I didn't understand any of the game mechanics, but I had managed to get reasonably far into the game. Fast-forward two years. I was becoming bored of internet flash games, and decided to browse my old game library. I picked out Pokemon Colosseum and began playing it. Instantly, I was entranced in it. I now understood the game mechanics, and played it all the way through, enjoying every moment of it. When I had finished, I wanted more. I talked to my mother, and she agreed to buy me Pokemon Pearl. I was enthused by the amazing amount of content in the game, and quickly learned that some Pokemon are better than others. When I beat the game, I would constantly train new Pokemon, trying to create the ultimate team.
It was about this time that I was on serebii.net researching Pokemon statistics when I came across their IRC chat rooms. I learned that there were several others like me, and I learned about Wifi Battle. I was amazed and relieved that the challenge of Pokemon did not end with the mediocre in-game trainers. At first, I did terribly. But eventually, I learned the art of competitive battle, and discovered the holy grail of Pokemon: Shoddy Battle.
This was it, everything I valued in Pokemon, realized in one gaming community. The very heart of the game was put into the simulator, and made open to the world. I couldn't get enough. This was my first ever online strategy game, and I was in love with it.
Buy my love was to be star-crossed. It was the summer of 2010. I had gotten into a bit of trouble, and my Pokemon privileges were temporarily removed. The trouble kept adding up, however, and after a long talk, my parents banned Pokemon for life. I now look back on this summer as the most depressing time of my life, and the closest I had ever come to suicide. My parents had slain my friend. My dream, my quest, my destiny - was gone. I was depressed for the entire summer, trying but failing to replace Pokemon with another game. It is only one year now before I am emancipated. I shall return.
It was now the fall of 2010. I was active in my school's chess club, and it was working reasonably well as a substitute for Pokemon. I overheard a couple of boys talking about Starcraft. I joined them, and grew increasingly interested, until it was mentioned that it cost $20. I was disheartened, my parents wouldn't buy another video game for me, especially after our recent ordeal.
"Well, if you can't try Starcraft, you may be interested in Minecraft," the boy told me.
"No way, dude. That game is pointless," the other replied. Seeing nothing else to do, I decided to try it. I created a singleplayer Classic world. It was moderately amusing, but boring after a while. I decided then to join multiplayer. I scanned over the list of servers and selected the one with the most players, Team9000 at the time. My jaw dropped open. Surrounding me were massive buildings and beautiful landscapes. I was amazed at the intricacy of everything and the time and dedication it took to build it. I explored the spawn and other worlds, but never returned.
It was now 2:00 A.M., April 24th, 2011. My father, previously dedicated to make me finish my essay with no goofing off, lie asleep on the couch across from me. I was bored, and for some reason remembered Minecraft. I signed in and looked at a different list of multiplayer servers. As before, I selected the one with the most players. "Welcome to the Official Opticraft Dev Server!" the welcome message read. I joined the guest world, and proceeded to laboriously build a gold pyramid. Thinking I had done pretty well, I asked an operator to be ranked.
"Sorry, but this isn't even close to enough to get recruit," he or she replied. "Type /join recruit to see what we're looking for." All that I remember of this recruit world is a giant detailed tree with staircases and rooms in it to the right of the recruit spawn. I quickly learned that getting ranks would not be easy. However, in a repeat of events, I didn't come back.
Fast forward approximately ten months. I don't remember the occasion, but I was back on Opticraft, this time to stay. I made friends with two recruits, DJAlphaWolf and ShuffleBot10, and a builder, Starry11. I went on almost daily to talk to them. I was surprised and happy when, one day, Starry11 became an Operator. I ever remember attending her wedding.
It was about this time that I discovered sprite art. Still clinging to the spirit of my past community, I googled an 8-bit Pokeball sprite and made it. Thinking it was pretty good, I signed up for the forums and posted it. I soon realized that this was a minor feat, and challenged myself to do better. I took on what would have been the largest sprite I had ever made: Celebi. Sadly, the world height was smaller than the sprite was, and so it could not be finished. I did not let this deter me, however, and I soon found a new objective. It was the night before the Hunger Games movie was to be released. I decided to make the Mockingjay pin. My goal was to finish before midnight, when the movie would show. I barely made it. I finished at 11:59 PM (no joke) and posted it on the forums. The next day, I was a recruit.
The rest of my history on Opticraft is known by most, so I will not bother to type what is already known.
I'm going to skip all the old Nintendo game consoles, such as the game boys, game cube, and all of those. What got me started with pc gaming was Club Penguin in about 2005 or 2006. After a while of playing that game, my brother got me into Runescape. This went on for 2 or 3 ish years then I discovered minecraft from a guy that made runescape videos on youtube. I would play that game on my mom's computer and she didn't like it so I asked for a laptop for christmas and got it. Then I got steam and got different games on steam such as super meat boy and tf2. My laptop could never handle any games and I put up with it for 2 years, then I asked for a powerful PC for christmas (I got to assemble it, it was fun). 4 months later I have 400GB of games on my computer.
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